Kirk Cameron Quotes

I can see how child stars can be thrown off-kilter.

At times, I feel sorry for kids who have succumbed in some kind of way to being a child actor.

I think that children that are acting are always pretty savvy anyway because you're conducting yourself around adults a lot of the time, aren't you? But there is this worry now that children just want to be famous.

I grew up in front of the camera from an early age. It distorts your perception of who you are. Having a lot of attention at a young age is not healthy.

I find that a lot of child actors are ruined once they've done a job.

I think it's child abuse to have someone in the public eye too young. Society basically values wealth and fame and power at the cost of well-being. In the case of a child, it's at the cost of someone's natural development. It's already hard enough to develop.

The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple, when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to deal with it because they're young, but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same.

In fact, my son learned his first swear word from E.T. at age five. The way I look at it, E.T. stole a bit of my son's childhood.

Sometimes I think we're exposed to things we shouldn't be exposed to too early. I think that sets the tone to a person's whole life. Trauma.

I find it weird the way people get so excited about celebrity. If my friends are on the phone, their friends will say: 'Is that kid from 'Love Actually' there?' And the phone gets passed round and I have to speak to this stranger asking: 'Are you famous?' I don't know how to answer.

I think a lot of people who are child actors - it's a weird thing.

Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.

All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

I don't know if we ever fully get over the pain of watching a child trying to find their way through a world that too often doesn't understand.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

There is a psychic cost children bear when they grow up in fear.

People are always saying that Hollywood messes up kids. I'm like, 'No, families mess up kids!' I grew up in Hollywood, and I'm perfectly fine. If my children want to go into the entertainment business, I won't stop them, as long as they're passionate about it.

Maybe I didn't have the childhood people think you should have, but I still went through the ages; I was still a child.

Hollywood can be an ugly place and it can do ugly things to you.

I'm not really sure what people's preconceived notions are. I don't look at the gossip websites - it's unhealthy and I think it's a large part of what drives people in L.A. crazy.

Words, especially when yelled in anger, can be very damaging to a child's self-confidence. The child probably already feels bad enough just from seeing the consequences of his or her behavior. Our sons and daughters don't need more guilt and self-doubt heaped upon their already wounded egos.

From a child's point of view, there is rarely a great time for parents to separate, even if there has been a lot of commotion and fighting.

It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children.